Learn it in two minutes.
For 2 to 5 players, ages 7 and up. A game takes 15 to 30 minutes.
Grab your tiles
Pour out all 100, face down. With two or three players, take 18 each. With four, take 14. With five, take 12.
Everyone goes
No turns. No waiting. Flip your tiles and start building. The whole table thinks at once.
Build equations
Connect them like a crossword. Every row and every column has to be real math, order of operations included. Stuck? Throw one tile back and draw two.
Call it
Out of tiles? Shout “Numeros!” and everyone draws three more. When the bag runs dry, the first clean grid wins.
Setup
Pour all 100 tiles onto the table, flip them face down and mix them up. Everyone takes a hand, still face down:
| Players | Tiles each |
|---|---|
| 2 | 18 |
| 3 | 18 |
| 4 | 14 |
| 5 | 12 |
The tiles left in the middle are the bag. Somebody says “Go!”, everyone flips their tiles, and the race is on.
What counts as an equation
- Exactly one equals tile.
- At least one + − × or ÷.
- It has to be true, using order of operations: multiply and divide before you add and subtract.
- Number tiles side by side read as one number. A 1 next to a 2 is 12. Three digits is the limit.
- No leading zeros. 07 is not a number.
- Whole numbers only. Division has to come out even, and nothing goes below zero.
Legal, or bad math?
Multiply first.
3 × 4 is 12, plus 2 is 14. Order of operations, doing its job.
Two tiles, one number.
The 1 and the 2 sit together, so they read as twelve.
Added first.
Adding before multiplying gets you 20. The rules get you 14.
Doesn't come out whole.
7 ÷ 2 is three and a half. Division has to land on a whole number.
Equations cross, like a crossword.
Your equations connect tile to tile, the way words do in a crossword. They can cross, and they can share tiles.
Every row or column of two or more touching tiles has to be a valid equation, read left to right or top to bottom.
- 7 × 3 = 21 across
- 9 ÷ 3 = 3 down, sharing the 3
- 1 + 4 = 5 down, sharing the 1
- 2 + 3 = 5 across, sharing the 5
Stuck?
Put one tile back in the bag, face down, and draw two. Do it as often as you like, as long as the bag still has two tiles in it.
“Numeros!”
Use every tile in your hand and shout “Numeros!” Every player, including you, draws three more tiles. The race keeps going.
“Bad math!”
See a wrong equation on someone else's grid? Call “Bad math!” and point. If you're right, they take those tiles back and rebuild. If you're wrong, you draw one tile as a penalty.
Winning
Once the bag is empty there is nothing left to draw. The first player to use every tile, in one connected grid where every line is valid, calls “Numeros!” one last time. Everyone checks it. Clean grid, game over. If there's a mistake, the broken tiles go back in that player's hand and play goes on.
For older kids, try Big Numbers: set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes. When it runs out, count the number tiles on your grid. Most tiles wins, so long equations pay.
Play a hand right here.
A real deal from the real bag: 18 tiles out of 100. Use every one.
On the table your equations cross each other like a crossword. Here you build them one line at a time.